presbyteress
presbyteress noun: a presbyter or priest's wife.
Noun
presbyteress (plural presbyteresses)
- A presbyter or priest's wife.
- Even a special blessing was included within the liturgy for the wives of married men on the day of their husband's ordination in the sixth century. These women were called presbyteresses (presbyterissae) and were entitled to wear special dress.1972, Charles A. Frazee, “The Origins of Clerical Celibacy in the Western Church”, in Church History, volume 41, number 2, →DOI, →ISSN, →JSTOR, page 157
- Synonyms:
- presbytera, priestess
- A female presbyter (elder of the congregation in early Christianity).
- Age was doubtless a requisite in presbyters, as it is here stated to have been in presbyteresses, with a view to their influence on the younger persons of their sex. They were supported by the Church, but not the only widows so supported.1863, Robert Jamieson, Andrew Robert Fausset, David Brown, A Commentary, Critical and Explanatory, on the Old and New Testaments
Synonyms of presbyteress
Forms of presbyteress
| plural | presbyteresses |
|---|
Origin of presbyteress
From Medieval Latin presbyterissa. By surface analysis, presbyter + -ess. Piecewise doublet of priestess.
Questions about presbyteress
- What does presbyteress mean?
- Presbyteress means a presbyter or priest's wife.
- What part of speech is presbyteress?
- Presbyteress is a noun.
- What is the plural of presbyteress?
- The plural of presbyteress is presbyteresses.
Words near presbyteress in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: presbyteress (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Cite this entry: “presbyteress.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/presbyteress. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.